McKeever's second issue on Mystique is much the same as the first, following the tone and general formula that Vaughan cooked up for the series, but some very inventive uses of Mystique's powers and a revelation that makes the plot more personal make this issue stronger than his debut. I'm still wishing for more of a longform storytelling approach rather than the sort of popcorn action movie, but the action scenes are good, the writing clever and the artwork attractively done. This is a book that's easy to pick up for some cheap action thrills, as there's not much in the way of an over-arcing story, and this issue, with several memorable scenes, might be the one to pick up if you've been curious about the book.
I'm not 100% against the slower pacing of comics like many are, but I do tend to find it annoying more often than not, so it's nice that Mystique provides something of an antidote to that style. Oh, the arcs might still run a bit long sometimes (two- and three-parters seem ideal for this book, rather than five- or six-parters), but there's always a lot going on in each issue. In this issue alone, we've got two big fights (and a couple little ones), an exciting escape, a clever infiltration and of course a cliffhanger ending. That's a lot of story in one issue, especially these days.
One of the things that drew me to this series right away was that Vaughan was doing some neat stuff with Mystique's powers, beyond just shapeshifting to look like someone else. McKeever continues that tradition in this issue, with Mystique using her powers to provide a method of escape and a method of infiltration, both pretty neat and pretty interesting extrapolations of her abilities. The other thing that was kind of cool is that McKeever is giving Shortpack, Mystique's pint-sized telepathic handler, more of a field role, and he gets some really fun scenes in this issue as well.
Garcia and Fernandez continue to impress as well, although their work on the last two issues hasn't been quite as impressive as the work they'd been doing on the previous couple of arcs. Either way, though, there's a nice realistic look to the characters, some exceptional action choreography and just generally great staging to the whole thing. Garcia also does an excellent job of giving the characters some context and background, whether it's a farm hideout (and Mystique using a can of milk as a prop), an Austrian bakery or a slick-looking office/lab building.
McKeever turns what could easily have been another interesting, but somewhat generic, story of mutant issues being solved a more personal twist in this issue, and it's a clever way of getting Mystique more emotionally involved. Given that Mystique is something of a distant personality by her very nature, making the case personal for Mystique, as well as introducing some doubt as to whether Xavier is lying to her, is a good way of moving forward the overall story of the book as well as making this arc more distinct from the past arcs.
